Upstairs in the Crazy House by Pat Caponni
Pat Caponni’s book on her experiences living in a boarding house for discharged psychiatric patients is a painful, uplifting, and ultimately very important book. Caponni displays with both subtlety and honesty the feelings and opinions that she held, and which changed so incredibly, during her time in the ‘crazy house.’ The feelings of fear, disgust, revulsion, etc., towards the other denizens that she admits to having felt upon her arrival, becuase of its honesty, makes her ultimate transition to the caring warden of these same people all the more striking and inspiring.
This book shows how easy it is to accept poverty when we don`t see it, when we succeed in hiding it away, but also how hard it is to not become a compasionate activist when we are forced to see it in an intimate way.
Tags: activism, books, Canada, poverty
This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 at 11:34 am and is filed under thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.